Zoketsu Norman Fischer Interview

Zoketsu Norman Fischer is a widely published poet and Zen Buddhist priest, a Dharma heir of Sojun Mel Weitsman. For many years he has taught at the San Francisco Zen Center, the oldest and largest of the new Buddhist organizations in the West, where he served as Co-abbot from 1995-2000. He is presently a Senior Dharma Teacher there as well as the founder and spiritual director of the Everyday Zen Foundation, an organization dedicated to adapting Zen Buddhist teachings to Western culture.

A person of unusually wide-ranging interests, his Zen teaching is known for its eclecticism, openness, warmth, and common sense, and for his willingness to let go of everything, including Zen. His chief interests in addition to poetry and traditional Zen and Buddhist teachings, are the adaptation of Zen meditation and understanding to the worlds of business, law, conflict resolution, interreligious dialog (he works especially with Jewish meditation and Catholic intermonastic dialog), care of the dying (he has for many years been a teacher with and is emeritus chair of the board of the Zen Hospice Project), the world of technology, and anything else he can think of. I want to thank Norman for taking the time to answer these questions.

Transcript

SZ: What was the initial draw for you to Zen practice and where and when did you begin?

NF: Well I guess I began in childhood, as most religious people do; in fact my theory is that everyone has religious experiences in childhood, profound experiences, only they forget them as they grow up. People who end up being religious are the people who remember. In my case it was fear and metaphysical horror. Early on I became aware of death, because I lived with my grandfather, who was dying, and did die, and this upset me and conditioned my childhood. I was a lonely brooding little guy. I kept thinking “Why does everyone, without exception, have to die and what is death anyway?” I got over it but later on, when I went to university, I remembered it, and it made me want to study philosophy and religion, which I did. When I encountered the first books about Zen – the only Buddhist books available in English at that time – I was immediately hooked. It just sounded right to me. It took a little while before I found out that there was a practice involved, that you could actually do the practice, and I moved to San Francisco and began.

SZ: This website is admittedly geared to persons in the United States, so this next question relates to that. Many of us are juggling jobs, school, and families that can limit our ability to devote time to formal practice. Is there really ever an ideal situation for Americans to practice in? What advice would you give someone struggling to find time to feed the dog, much less set time aside for zazen?

NF: You are right. This is the biggest challenge, being busy and all tied up in worldly things. But it is possible to practice anyway; in fact the very stress of it all makes practice almost a necessity – I know this because these days everyone I work with in practice is an ordinary person living an ordinary American life. I am living that life myself more or less! It does take some discipline though, and you need support. I don’t care who you are or what your circumstances are no matter what anyone can get up in the morning and sit. A half an hour is enough. There is no single more powerful spiritual exercise than this – just to sit in silent meditation each day for half an hour. If you start your day like this, and establish an ongoing daily practice, then eventually it will condition your whole day. During the day you can take meditation breaks- or, rather, keep on with your meditation – by taking a mindful breath from time to time, or being mindful when you walk, move, or speak. You can be mindful of your conduct all day long. You can be mindful when you drive. When you cook and eat. I always say to people “the idea that there’s no time to do practice is a false confused idea. In fact, you don’t have time NOT to do practice.” Because practice saves you all the messes you have to take so much time to clean up. But you do need support in order to do this. This is just realistic. Most of us can’t be disciplined on our own, and even if we could, still we’d need support, to make sure we were not going off. So you probably need to find a group and some kind of teacher or teaching. It won’t work out just to do it on your own. Of course if no group of teacher is readily available you do the best you can. But these days there is no reason why anyone can’t find a group or teacher eventually – even if you have to go far away, you can do that, once a year, say, if it is important enough for you. Religion is not the ordinary thing. It does not obey the limits of space and time. The idea that you don’t have time for it, can’t afford it, etc is just a crazy idea – a cramped materialist world view.

SZ: I know you’ve talked about this at length in other forums, but I wonder if you could talk to us a bit about how your poetry factors in to your Zen practice and vice versa?

NF: I often say that Zen practice saved me from poetry (from the excessive self-centeredness that the arts can sometimes foster) and that poetry saved me from Zen practice (from the narrow doctrinaire quality that all too many religious practitioners evidence). In fact, my analysis is that language and religion are very closely aligned. Human beings learned to speak and immediately there was religion; language is a symbolic system and religion is just an extension of that system; together they constitute the way we envision and therefore live in the world. So working with language as closely as you have to when you do poetry (which is the most basic encounter with language) is very fruitful for the religious life. I have found it so.

SZ: You’ve been practicing and teaching Zen for a very long time and I’m sure you’ve seen periods of ups and downs regarding institutions and teachers. In your mind, what makes for a good practice site and teacher? What should prospective students be looking for?

NF: Humility is probably the most important thing. Modesty of approach. The spirit that we are all in this together (and I mean all of us, not just the sangha members or the group members, but every human being) and we need to do the best we can. Knowing that human beings are always a little bit off so we have to be careful with each other, and very kind, knowing everyone makes mistakes. Teachers who think they are actually teachers teaching something are to be avoided. Good teachers are people who are themselves simply working on their own practice and are willing to share their lives as best they can with others. In this sense the “best” teachers are often the worst teachers; the more briliiant the teacher, the more exciting, the more enlightened, the worse it is for the student. The student ends up lusting after time with the teacher, hanging on her every word, and forgetting that this is about him or her, the student, not the teacher.

SZ: What books would you recommend to our readers interested in Zen practice?

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Established in 2009 as a grassroots initiative, Sweeping Zen is a digital archive of information on Zen Buddhism. Featuring in-depth interviews, an extensive database of biographies, news, articles, podcasts, teacher blogs, events, directories and more, this site is dedicated to offering the public a range of views in the sphere of Zen Buddhist thought. We are also endeavoring to continue creating lineage charts for all Western Zen lines, doing our own small part in advancing historical documentation on this fabulous import of an ancient tradition. Come on in with a tea or coffee. You're always bound to find something new.

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About Sweeping Zen

Established in 2009 as a grassroots initiative, Sweeping Zen is a digital archive of information on Zen Buddhism. Featuring in-depth interviews, an extensive database of biographies, news, articles, podcasts, teacher blogs, events, directories and more, this site is dedicated to offering the public a range of views in the sphere of Zen Buddhist thought. We are also endeavoring to continue creating lineage charts for all Western Zen lines, doing our own small part in advancing historical documentation on this fabulous import of an ancient tradition. Come on in with a tea or coffee. You're always bound to find something new.

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